Lava Iris Pro 30 review – if looks could sell

The Lava Iris Pro 30 is the first handset in the Iris Pro series. This handset houses the 1.2GHz MT6589 chipset and sports a 4.7 inch screen with HD resolution. The key highlight is its gorgeous look, handset is slim and light weight – priced at under Rs. 16,000.

Pro 30 Box pack
Inside the box you will find the handset, charger, data cable, earphone, user manual and warranty card. A free screen guard is also includes which is really not required as it’s clearly mentioned on the box pack that the screen is with corning gorilla glass protection.

OS, Design and Display
The lava Iris Pro 30 sails on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS. Pro 30 is all about the looks. The build quality and finishing is excellent and the ‘almost black’ front OGS glass adds up to the elegant and premium look.

The handset is light weight at 115 grams with battery. It is 7.91mm thick, breadth is 66.88mm and the length is 137.97mm. The rear side is matte finish with greyish texture – very good grip. The front side is pure black and the sides are greyish black metallic color.

The power button and volume rockers are placed on the right, 3.5mm audio jack on the top and micro USB port along with the mic at the bottom.

The screen is 4.7 inches supporting resolution of 1280×720 pixels (312ppi). The Iris Pro 30 is using the Sharp OGS screen technology with content adaptive backlight control and corning gorilla glass protection. Viewing angles are pretty good, touch is smooth and responsive. There are accelerometer, light, magnetic and proximity sensors. There is LED notification too.

Memory and Storage
The handset comes with 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage plus micro SD card support of up to 32GB. 1.3GB is space for apps, 0.98GB is the phone storage and free RAM is 613MB on first boot. OTG is supported and you can install / move selected app on the external storage.

Performance
Its old wine in new bottle – 1.2GHz MT6589 processor with PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU. The same hardware that powered the Lava Iris 504q and Micromax A116 HD.

Benchmark scores

Quadrant Standard – 4042.

AnTuTu – 13881.

Vellamo – HTML5 1443, Metal 447.

Nenamark 2 – 44.9 fps

Multi touch : 10 points.

Gaming and Entertainment
I installed the MC4 (Modern Combat 4) and Asphalt 8 on the external storage. Game play was smooth. MC4 did well and as for Asphalt 8 it worked better when the visual quality was set to low.

You can play full HD videos in both H/W and S/W modes.

8MP AF Camera
There is rear camera of 8MP resolution and front camera of 3MP resolution. The camera quality is below average. You can check the sample images. The full HD video recording was good enough. The rear camera is with dual LED flash seems to brighten up the subject too much. When using the dual LED flash in low light environment you might want to step a little away to get decent quality pictures.

Others
Sound is loud / clear. I got the GPS lock within 30 seconds. 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth worked well without any issues.

Pro 30 Battery
The Lava Iris Pro 30 comes with non-removable battery of 2000 mAh (Li-po) capacity. It is possible to remove the battery but it’s clearly mentioned that doing so will void the warranty. The benchmark apps ran for around 21 minutes –battery dropped by 6% and when I played some high end games for about 15 minutes the battery dropped by 6%. The max temperature was 37 degrees.

VerdictLava Iris Pro series were supposed to be launched in 2013, had the Pro 30 been launched then, it would have done well. For now the Pro 30 houses 1.2GHz quad core processor with unique features for a price tag of approx Rs. 15,500. This seems too much as 1.5GHz MT6589T is available for a lower price. Moreover the octa cores that will soon flood the market are priced at 18K and over.

Though the handset has got a premium look and is light weight, it may or may not tempt the users, only time will tell. There are powerful handsets available for a lower price but if you are looking for style/class the the Lava Iris Pro 30 could enchant you.

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{ 85 Responses }

Narendran

March 13, 2014 at 1:45 am

Hi Gogi Sir,

This is Naren from Chennai. I find your mobile reviews to be very useful. I have a question on this Lava Iris Pro 30 smartphone. Considering its low internal storage, can the apps be directly installed in a SD card with out rooting the phone?

Hi Gogi Sir
I bought iris pro 30 day before yesterday from Varanasi .No doubt mobile is good but I have problem with its battery back up its last only about 5 hrs and slow internet process . Can you please confirmed me that with new box we should get flip cover or not because some places I read flip cover is inside the box but unfortunately I haven’t received it in my box.

Gogi Sir, today I bought lava iris pro 30 and I am quite impressed with its looks and performance. since this has dual SIM slot, which slot is meant for 3g and which one for 2g or we can insert any SIM into any slot.
thanks

Gogi Sir i am big fan of your site because it is compact and easy to find the actual
thing, the gaming review, the camera quality this feature of your site i likeed very much, But i have a problem i am planning to buy Xolo Q700s but first of all i wanted to know how the model is, so i checked your site but i dont find the review, so plz make it one, not only me even my friends wanted to know the actual performance of model, so i request you to make a review of Xolo Q700s, plz

I got this mobile sterday, initially it was working well, i turned it off and charged it for few hours and i tried it . The mobile is not working, just a light flash appears on the screen and nothing more happens…any ideas why is it so?

Very much disappointing from lava mobiles. Lava Iris Pro an exact copy of StarMobile Knight. Just google it. Not even a single change except logo. But Knight has better specs. Very poor. Copycat meets smart 😛

I had dreamed some month ago may be some of you don’t have forgotten, but i think thing near to the dream at least in looks and build…120gms f0r 4,7 inch … may be within 6 months my dream will come true.

Compared to Magnus, it has some advantages like sharp display, gorilla glass protection, ideal screen size etc but could’ve come up with atleast Turbo processor with 2GB RAM and better camera at this price point. Non removable battery is also a major disappointing factor. These Chinese made batteries may not be able to store power after some months of usage. And you’ve to find a service centre to change a battery on your device. Not even sure if these kinda battery spares be available for a long time even if the hardware survive for next two years.

Except looks, this phone has nothing to talk about. At 16000/- much better and powerful phones are available these days. Low battery, low camera, low internal memory of this could put off buyers.
I had been waiting for this phone for months and I wanted to buy but I am disappointed. Had its camera been 13 MP, I would have bought it, now I would avoid it and will turn to some other phone. Bye Bye Lava!

No some part of the app will be on the internal storage. Just to give you an example. The MC4 and the Asphalt games got installed on the external storage ( the files are huge – over 1GB) and some part around 16MB or so (may be less) is installed on the internal storage. Now say if you shut the phone and remove the SD card and start the phone again you will see the MC4 and Asphalt game in the menu (cause some part of the app is on internal storage) but if you try playing the game it will not work as major data is on SD card that you removed.

Gogi ji…need help my brother wants to buy a smartphone
He is a samsung lover so he wants to buy a samsung android phone under 25k…So can u suggest according to performance and usages…which 1 should buy according to the following….
1…Galaxy S3
2.Galaxy grand 2 duos
3.Galaxy s4 mini
4.Galaxy grand duos…

Thanks Pradip
day, night with flash / without flash etc, HDR all the samples you can find in the image sample section check the image description for more info. Not sure if I will add video calling. I do cover new / unique app that might have been added.

Please suggest should I go for LG G2 32 GB(white), for 30k(without India Waranty).
I have been searching for a phone for the long, waited for micromax too but was not getting what I wanted(under 30,000 INR). Now one of my friend is in Dubai, he is getting the same G2 32 GB in 29.5 k, please suggest should I grab this deal.
Waiting for your valuable response on this.

Looks and build quality is stunning. The specs are well balanced and benchmarks are “good enough” to run most of the games and apps. The best thing about this phone is that it has close to stock Andorid feel with little to no modifications. 4 GB Internal memory for this much price is a bit on the downside.

Look wise it will be pro 30 both handsets are priced about the same (+ / – Rs. 500). But Magnus A117 is still a better choice and its camera is far better than both these handsets, plus Magnus is now price at under 13K.

Well I think there might be some sticker (or something) that will break if you try to remove the battery. If handset falls in water then better let the handset dry for few days and then power on you can try opening the battery also in case it does not work. Last option is toe to take it to service center, do note such accidents are not covered under warranty.